Truancy Volume 179: Cryptolect

Following from her crushing debut EP on UNO NYC, The Marrow In My Bones, we are extremely excited to see Cryptolect in the mix for Truancy Volume 179. Hailing from NYC, Cryptolect’s music rides the borderline of sensuality and melancholy, weaving together a wonder-world of emotional landscapes and images. It is an imaging body, conjuring filthy dystopian cities alongside tranquil waterfalls. The Marrow In My Bones is all drama, taking us from the manic purgatory of “Punished” to the balmier shores of “Creature”, both littered with atrophied vocals and industrial lurches. For Cryptolect, music is an exploration of childhood imagination and illness, ‘a means of escape from the reality of being in constant pain’. These therapeutic images and the generosity inherent in their conception have us very excited about what she has in store for us next. Cryptolect blazes through Truancy Volume 179 in frantic style, darting between a slew of punishing tracks from the likes of NA, M.E.S.H and Mssingno, as well as Kelela and Linkin Park edits. We caught up with her over a quick chat about OSTs, edit culture, and the concept behind her debut EP.

How did you get started making music? What did you do before and does it effect the music you make? “I was really sick as a child and that was around when I started. I was very young and highly imaginative and music was a means of escape from the reality of being in constant states of pain. I don’t think there was ever a “before” to making music, there have been moments through it where I’ve done other things but I always fall back in love with making music. I believe in always exploring my childhood imagination and it definitely still effects the music I make.”

What was your path to club music specifically? “I don’t know if I’d describe my music as club music, per se, because when I think of club music I envision people wanting to dance heavily, and consistently. Some of my music I think is more of an experience for a different atmosphere.”

I love your debut EP, it was very cinematic and apocalyptic and toyed with those themes and images a lot. It reminded me a lot of the Oshii film Avalon. Are OSTs and films important to your work? “They’re both definitely important to my work. I love composers like Hans Zimmer for instance and I find myself a lot of times building a song in my head and what accompanies the auditory part of the work is usually some dramatic, highly cinematic visual. I went to school for film so when I think of music it’s always paired with a thought of how those same emotions would carry out visually.”

Could you give us some insight into some of the concepts, emotions, themes, background of the EP? “I wanted The Marrow in My Bones to be like offering a view into myself without shame. An introduction. Making music is really vulnerable and can be scary but fear is natural and powerful and I like to imagine it as a sort of motivating fuel. I love the concept of sadness and sensuality at play together. I love music that makes me feel sexual but simultaneously sad, if that makes any sense, and that’s what I like to carry out in my music. That these emotions can be beautiful and poignant.”

Do you feel tied to Brooklyn or NYC sonically or otherwise? How does that context influence you? “I love this city but I also really love hiking and retreating into nature. Things like swimming holes and being surrounded by nature influence me just as much, if not more than the city.”

Your mix focuses heavily on edits and remixes, including a couple of classics by Total Freedom. Is the editing process important for you? “Absolutely. I like how remixes are the re-imagining of a song. I’m all about how we imagine things can be, so with music I like listening to how another artist might interpret a song and how they may beautify it or in some cases ruin it.”

Do you have any new projects on the horizon? “I’m in the process of working on my first full length album. I’m definitely taking my time to put it together and I think it’s important to really feel what you’re doing first in order to be vulnerable later when it’s out.”